A blog by Luke Akehurst about politics, elections, and the Labour Party - With subtitles for the Hard of Left.
Just for the record: all the views expressed here are entirely personal and do not necessarily represent the positions of any organisations I am a member of.

Monday, April 07, 2008

The IOC

A simple change the IOC could make when awarding future Olympic host status: instead of giving it to countries with a poor human rights record like China on the vague promise of an improvement if they become host, why not require a clear basic level of human rights and democracy as a pre-qualification criteria before you are even entitled to submit a bid to be a host?

The Olympic Charter says:

"The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man,with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity."

The current situation in Tibet is not compatible with "harmonious development", "a peaceful society" or "the preservation of human dignity."

I felt ashamed by the participation of British Ministers and sportspeople in the torch relay yesterday and by the co-option as auxiliaries of our police force into helping what appeared to be a goon squad from the Chinese security services to protect the flame.

Well done to the Free Tibet campaigners for the scale of their mobilisation.

The relay was a farce and we should have told the Chinese where to stick their torch.

But Luke surely you were the same one a few weeks/months back who posted that now we were in for the Chinese Olympics, we should fully go with them and leave the protesting/ boycotting out of it? A sentiment, on purely pragmatic grounds that I agreed with at the time.

We are supping with the devil and when he farts all over your plate there's no point gripping about it. Either come to the banquet or not - but don't expect to attend and then prance about on dainty little points of holding torches or the PM being present.

The Olympics farce provides much the same lessons as the G8 Against Poverty marches showed - that the political elites here in the UK are just totally out-of-touch with what the public really feels and thinks.

Merseymike, what sort of economic action? The Chinese own us. If they dumped their dollars and bonds, they could break the US economy and render the dollar less valuable than the paper it's printed on.

The UK is not much safer from it, and they could turn that money in for oil if they really wanted to play dirty. Bluntly, no matter how unacceptably they behave, we can't afford to upset them any more.

Lets be honest it should not go to any country which has poverty Indian China wales America, this week when I was told that all disabled people work in some states in America, the one used by Brown to stand up for his new regime, has just paid out a world record 28 million food stamps and coupons for the poor, after saying it has no poor since the sick and the disabled now work.

But the real problem is we cannot keep on spending vast amounts of money putting on a show which has become the dream of all drug addicted athletes.

It's time to say the games should go home and then each country which takes part should pay a percentage of money to build and run the games, the UK will spend near enough twenty one billion by the end, and who will make the money are the large firms who will use over seas bank accounts to pay no tax, who will lose are the idiots who pay for a ticket.

I agree with you comrade on this one (are you getting more left wing in your old age?), however Mike and (to his credit) Rich are right unless business decides to take a stand against them I am afraid a sporting boycott would fall short.

Mr Brown said: "I will not allow house prices to get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the future." He said he was determined that the UK should not return to the "instability, speculation and negative equity" of the 1980s and 1990s.

The thing is the torch relay is an absolutely marvellous anti-PR for China. Unbeatable. Calling for it to be stopped because of the strength of the protests and the weakness of China's human rights record seems a bit dim Luke to be honest.

Every Jesus needs their Judas, and most of those taking part in the torch relays don't even qualify for that comparison as they are happy to diss China when they get a chance to do so.

They are surely supporting the Olympic ideal and the efforts of those sportsmen and women? Not Chinese oppression in Tibet.

In my view the IOC should try to stop China pushing the relay through Tibet but should not even think about cancelling the protestors' platform for their views in the rest of the world.

Although it reads as a bit of an in joke between two Huqs and a Paul my take on Sunday's events was here.

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About Me

Labour Party activist since 1988 - firmly on the moderate wing of the party. Member of Labour’s NEC 2010-2012. National Secretary of Labour Students 1995-6. Parliamentary candidate for Aldershot (2001) and Castle Point (2005). Hackney Councillor (Chatham Ward) 2002-2014, Labour Group Chief Whip 2002-09, Chair of Health Scrutiny 2010-2014. Supporter of Europe, NATO/nuclear deterrence, Israel, electoral reform. Guardian reader. Dad. Oxford resident. Unite union member. Employment history as a Labour Party Organiser, Local Government Political Assistant, Director at a Public Affairs company. All views expressed in a personal capacity. The rest will become evident from reading the blog.